Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta was, like many on the political left, angry with former FBI Director James Comey Tuesday morning. But his tone changed significantly only hours later when President Donald Trump fired Comey.

Just last week, Hillary Clinton partially blamed Comey for her loss in the 2016 election, so it’s not surprising her campaign chairman would also harbor bad blood. Tuesday morning, while sharing a story on the then-FBI director’s testimony the day before, Podesta commented, “The American public is getting mildly nauseous listening to Jim Comey.”

Texas mother and citizen journalist Amy Hedtke was forcibly removed from a State Affairs Committee meeting by Republican Committee Chair Byron Cook when she attempted to film the meeting in accordance withTexas state law.

After Hedtke’s story went viral on the internet, Project Veritas’ James O’Keefe decided to team up with her and confront State Rep. Cook in person.

REISTERSTOWN, Md. — This week is Maryland Hurricane Preparedness Week and the Maryland Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) is teaming up with the National Weather Service (NWS) and local emergency managers to promote citizen awareness and preparedness.

The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June to November. The height of our season in Maryland typically is mid-August to October. Hurricanes can cause strong winds, heavy rain, inland flooding and other severe weather. Residents in Maryland can “be weather ready” by ensuring that they know how to receive a warning, have a plan, and practice safety tips.

“Now is the time to start planning for hurricanes,” said Governor Larry Hogan. “Make sure you have an emergency plan, a disaster supply kit ready, and that your family, friends, and neighbors are prepared as well. If a storm is headed our way, the safest action is the simplest action – use common sense and stay safe.”

“We all saw the destruction in North Carolina and other states to our south after Hurricane Matthew last summer,” said MEMA Executive Director Russ Strickland. “Just a slight change in the path of that storm and Maryland could have been in the bull’s eye. Don’t wait until a storm is headed our way to prepare.”

The NWS notes Maryland can see hurricanes and impacts from a storm hundreds of miles away. “Damage to coastlines and destruction several hundred miles in-land can be seen with these tropical storms,” said NWS Warning Coordination Meteorologist Christopher Strong. “Hurricanes can produce 150-plus miles per hour winds, tornadoes and tremendous flooding from both tidal surges as well as torrential rain.”

Will these lawsuits inspire other attorneys and their clients to sue vaccine manufacturers for injury from other adult vaccines?

Major media aren’t giving this story the coverage it deserves. I certainly am.

Short question: Can a person sue a US vaccine manufacturer?

Short answer: Under certain conditions, yes.

Note: I’m not framing this article as professional legal advice. I’m reporting what I’ve been able to dig up on a very explosive issue so far. I’ve communicated with two lawyers and a law professor. I’ve been pointed to an important passage on a federal web page.

Right now, lawyers and their clients are suing Merck, the manufacturer, for injuries incurred from Merck’s shingles vaccine, Zostavax.

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources invites youth ages 8 to 16 with an interest in hunting, shooting sports and wildlife management to register for free Junior Hunter Field Days this spring. Staff along with sporting and conservation groups will use hand-on activities to teach participants about natural resources stewardship, wildlife biology, shooting safety and ethical conduct in the field.

Junior hunters will learn about archery, sporting clays and hunting with dogs in a safe, mentored setting. All equipment will be provided, with certified instructors overseeing all shooting activities.

The events are free of charge and include lunch for all participants and their parents/guardians. Registration is now open for spring events but space is limited; registration deadlines and other information is available here.

Conclusions:“These data suggest that there may be an increased incidence of certain cancers among the 98 million persons exposed to contaminated polio vaccine in the U.S.; further investigations are clearly justified.”Vaccination and Health Outcomes: A Survey of 6- to 12-year-old Vaccinated and Unvaccinated Children based on Mothers’ Reports. Front. Public Health (Frontiers in Public Health, November 2016)

According to Barbara Loe Fisher of the National Vaccine Information Center:

MIAMI – The Coast Guard Cutter Seneca offloaded more than one ton of marijuana Tuesday in Fort Lauderdale worth an estimated $2.4 million wholesale.

The 2,600 pounds of drugs were interdicted by the Coast Guard Cutter Diligence in April during a case approximately 80 miles south of Haiti.

Numerous U.S. agencies from the Departments of Defense, Justice and Homeland Security are involved in the effort to combat transnational organized crime. The Coast Guard, Navy, Customs and Border Protection, FBI, Drug Enforcement Agency and Immigration and Customs Enforcement along with allied and international partner agencies play a role in counter-drug operations. The fight against transnational organized crime networks in the Caribbean Basin requires unity of effort in all phases from detection, monitoring and interdictions, to prosecutions by U.S. Attorneys.

The Coast Guard increased U.S. and allied presence in the Eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Basin, which are known drug transit zones off of Central and South America, as part of its Western Hemisphere Strategy.

The cutter Diligence is a 210-foot medium endurance cutter home ported in Wilmington, North Carolina.The cutter Seneca is a 270-foot medium endurance cutter home ported in Boston, Massachusetts.

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Ravens Coach John Harbaugh receives $1,5000 every year from sports company New Era at the NFL League Meetings to spend on personal use or giveaways throughout the season. This year, Coach Harbaugh decided to put the money to special use and bought hats for troops serving overseas.

Harbaugh’s money was used to buy 154 New Era hats to give away to soldiers in Afghanistan.

“Certainly can’t underestimate how appreciative we are of the great sacrifices made by our military members overseas, and so our goal with the caps was to try and brighten the days of as many Army men and women as we could,” Harbaugh says in a report from the Ravens.

He didn’t buy just Ravens hats, but team caps from all the major leagues, including NFL, MLB, and NBA and colleges too.

BALTIMORE (WJZ)– Howard County Police say charges against the inmate who escaped and eluded police for several days have been dropped.

The charges against David Watson in Howard County that were dropped were first- and second-degree escape and second-degree assault.

A Judge had ordered Watson’s transfer to Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center for a competency evaluation, but the Howard County State’s Attorney’s Office and agencies involved decided an evaluation by a visiting doctor at the detention center was best.

CBS Local — In a potentially groundbreaking study published in the journal Nature Medicine, it has been found that a key ingredient in marijuana, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), could possibly be a cure of dementia.

Researchers in a joint study in Europe tested low doses of THC on aging mice them. The older mice, who should have had signs of aging, performed the same as younger mice, showing that when exposed to low doses of THC, cognitive ability did not decrease as it naturally should have. In humans, cognitive ability can decrease rapidly into dementia.

“The treatment completely reversed the loss of performance in the old animals,” said Andreas Zimmer, researcher and professor at Bonn University’s Institute of Molecular Psychiatry. “With increasing age, the quantity of the cannabinoids naturally formed in the brain reduces. When the activity of the cannabinoid system declines, we find rapid aging in the brain.”

The findings could potentially be huge in the on-going search for treating mental diseases such as dementia.

We’ve all heard how terribly Hillary Clinton treated her Secret Service detail while her husband was President, and it horrified everyone with a sense of decency. You should not scream and curse at the people who are responsible for taking a bullet for your nasty hide.

In fact, Clinton could learn a lot from the way the current First Family treats their security.

WARNING: It will absolutely melt your heart.

Cameras captured the precious moment when Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump’s husband, brought his children outside holding a pan of cookies. These delicious little treats were promptly delivered to the Secret Service agents on duty outside their home.

After smoothing out his son’s hair, Jared hopped in a car that took him to the White House for work.

DOVER — The House of Representatives voted 24-16 Tuesday to reinstate the death penalty, sending the bill to the Senate.

House Bill 125 would restore capital punishment after the Delaware Supreme Court struck down the state’s death penalty statute in August. Because the provision allowed a judge to make the final decision as to whether the convicted individual would be sentenced to death or not, the court concluded it violated the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees a trial by jury.

The new bill uses many of the same procedures as the old statute but requires unanimous jury agreement for a sentence of death.

Supporters of the death penalty say it helps prevent crime and point to the recent killings of correctional officer Lt. Steven Floyd and police officer Col. Stephen Ballard as examples of heinous crimes that need to be prevented and punished.

You may have heard that last Monday, Colgate University, in lovely New York State, went into lockdown over an active shooter incident.

Oh, you didn’t hear? Maybe that’s because was there was no active shooter on the campus of Colgate University. As defined by the federal government, an active shooter is an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area.

Sure, there was a call placed to campus security regarding a sighting. “Shortly after 8 p.m. Monday, two students reported seeing a shirtless black man running in the rain carrying his shirt and phone in one hand, and what appeared to be a weapon in his other hand. He was running into a campus building,” wrote Syracuse.com.

So it is night time – it’s pouring down rain, and a man is running. Whoever called in the report must have been Clint Barton – Hawkeye from Marvel’s Avengers.

Evidently the report was almost entirely accurate, so bully for the witnesses. There was but one thing the witnesses described incorrectly. The shirtless black man was armed with a GLUE gun and was rushing into the building to complete an art project that was due.

For this, the entire Colgate campus went into a four hour lockdown, as campus security, local police and a SWAT team went building to building. There was even report of a tank being present – although it more likely an MRAP (Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected) vehicle that more and more police departments are deploying for these types of situations.

(May 2, 2017)– With the busy summer travel season just around the corner, the Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration (MDOT SHA) will be shifting the US 13/US 50 (Salisbury Bypass) traffic back to the regular two-lane, two-way configuration beginning May 10. The shift will occur in two stages:

A) During the overnight hours of May 10-11 SHA will remove the bidirectional traffic pattern north of US 50 (Ocean Gateway). The resulting pattern will be one lane in each direction on the inner and outer Bypass loops. Thiswork will require a full closure of the Salisbury Bypass Thursday morning, May 11,from 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. All northbound traffic must exit the Bypass at MD 12 (Snow Hill Road) and southbound traffic must exit at US 50. Motorists should plan alternate routes for travel during these hours.

B) Crews will then complete median work and shift traffic back to the regular pattern, two lanes in each direction, no later than Wednesday, May 24, weather permitting.

The bidirectional pattern south of US 50 will remain in place through early summer for completion of bridge repairs at MD 350 (Mount Hermon Road) and Parker Pond. Motorists are encouraged to plan extra travel time during construction.

Click here for informationabout the overall $28 million project to rehabilitate 11 bridges on the Salisbury Bypass. The entire project will be completed by summer 2018.

Stay alert and look for reduced speed limits, narrow driving lanes and highway workers. Slow down and don’t follow too closely. Work Zone Safety is in Your Hands. Maryland drivers can also know before they go by calling 511 or visitingwww.md511.orgfor live traffic updates, including construction delays and lane closures.

You’ve got to just love how millennials have no shame. They just do whatever they want to do and no problem who sees. This particular young man wasn’t ashamed about raping his friends dog in their backyard… but then the neighbor lady pulled out her 9mm.

Kellie Lenkerd called Centerton Police Department to report bestiality. She claimed the boy was in her neighbors backyard wearing only his boxer shorts and a t-shirt while raping a dog. Lenkerd told the Centerton Police Department that, ‘I heard my dog Linus barking like crazy so I looked out my bedroom and saw a teenage boy with his boxers on and the dog he raped last time.

I got my gun out of my safe and went out my back door. I told him to get on the f****** ground and pointed my gun at him. He asked me if the gun was real and I said “what the f*** do you think?” I told him one more time to get on the f****** ground now. He headed over to the fence. I unlocked my fence and he jumped the fence. He started to run and I pointed the gun to the ground and fired to scare him. He kept running and said “you crazy b****”. I headed in and took my gun inside and called 911.

When I was outside I saw he left his clothes behind and iPad with headphones. I grabbed the iPad in case he came back to take his stuff. I needed evidence if it was him this time.’

WASHINGTON, DC: On May 10, Congressman Andy Harris (MD-01) issued the following statement on the termination of FBI Director James Comey:

“The FBI Director, like all heads of executive branch agencies, serves at the discretion of the President. The recommendation to terminate Director Comey came from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein – a man committed to justice and widely respected by his peers. I trust the judgment of Mr. Rosenstein, and I believe the President and Attorney General should choose a Director in whom they and the American people have full confidence.”

A 13-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit heard arguments on Monday over President Trump's revised travel ban, with judges repeatedly questioning the government's lawyer in the case about Trump's campaign call "for a complete and total shutdown" of Muslims entering the country.

The president's first executive order restricting visitors from a handful of majority-Muslim countries provoked chaos at airports across the country in January. Federal judges stepped in to block the order, partly because it included legal permanent residents, who have rights under the U.S. Constitution.

Weeks later, the White House issued a new order, dropping Iraq from the list of countries whose travelers faced restrictions and making clear green-card holders would not be covered.

BALTIMORE —Trading guns for bail is being proposed as a way to cut down on gun violence in Baltimore.

A Baltimore City councilman hopes his fellow lawmakers will consider implementing the program. The program's creator envisions guns for bail as a mashup of a gun buyback program and a bail bonds service.

However, a lot of legal hurdles will have to be cleared before a test run.

More than 100 people have been murdered on Baltimore City streets this year.

Capt. Christopher Kelly and Jeffrey Miller — firefighters for West Lanham Hills Volunteer Company 28 — are charged with second-degree assault, interfering with a firefighter and misconduct in office.

The charges stem from an incident in which both Volunteer Company 28 and Career Company 30 responded to a house fire on Dec. 8, 2015.

Three witnesses who took the stand Tuesday were the three career firefighters who responded to the house fire on 75th Avenue in Hyattsville.

Defense attorneys Ann Koshy and Brian Bregman attempted to discredit the testimony of Prince George’s County firefighter medic Samantha Satterfield, who described being blocked from entering the home by Kelly.

They pointed out inconsistencies with testimony Satterfield provided in the courtroom versus a written statement submitted for a Fire Department internal investigation.

Almost 100 hospitals reported suspicious data on dangerous infections to Medicare officials, but the agency did not follow up or examine any of the cases in depth, according to a report by the Health and Human Services inspector general's office.

Most hospitals report how many infections strike patients during treatment, meaning the infections are likely contracted inside the facility. Each year, Medicare is supposed to review up to 200 cases in which hospitals report suspicious infection-tracking results.

The IG said Medicare should have done an in-depth review of 96 hospitals that submitted "aberrant data patterns" in 2013 and 2014. Such patterns could include a rapid change in results, improbably low infection rates or assertions that infections nearly always struck before patients arrived at the hospital.

The IG's report, released Thursday, was designed to address concerns over whether hospitals are "gaming" a system in which it falls to the hospitals to report patient-infection rates and, in turn, the facilities can see a bonus or a penalty worth millions of dollars.

A former top Episcopal bishop who struck and killed a cyclist in Baltimore while driving drunk two days after Christmas will remain in prison after the Maryland Parole Commission rejected her plea for early release.

Heather Cook, once the second-highest-ranking Episcopal leader in Maryland, pleaded guilty in October 2015 to manslaughter, drunken driving and leaving the scene after striking cyclist Tom Palermo on December 27, 2014.

On Tuesday the Maryland Parole Commission denied her parole request. She is serving a seven-year prison sentence.

Commission chair David Blumberg said Cook's request was refused outright, meaning she must serve her sentence until her mandatory release date in March 2020.

However, he said if she earns time off credits, she would get out sometime in 2019. He said the decision of the two commissioners was unanimous.

The narrative birthed by butt-hurt liberals about Trump and his collusion with Russians is over folks. The fat lady has sung, and we can now put that ridiculous phase behind us.

It was such a waste of resources, but that’s the left for you. In all this time they have been given so many opportunities to recognize they were barking up the wrong tree but never did. Now we have the Queen of liberal doubters actually admitting that there is in fact NO evidence showing any sort of collusion.

Former Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper released a statement back in January that he had not come across any sort of evidence of collusion, and he reiterated his position on it again during his testimony before the Senate on Monday.

Back in March, former acting director of the CIA Mike Morell also weighed in with his two cents stating that not only was there no evidence, there was also NO reason to consider there would be.

Liberal political columnist who voted for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton last year, just put out a statement of advice for the twice failed presidential candidate following her announcement to remain involved in politics.

We’re just going to cut right to the chase:

“Hey, Hillary Clinton, shut the f— up and go away already,”

“I voted for Clinton on Nov. 8 and thought she’d be a good president,” he explained. “But she lost. And she still wants us to feel bad about that. And, worse, she’s still blaming everyone else.”

An unclassified FBI report reveals the consequences of the American Left’s penchant for police-bashing.

According to “Assailant Study — Mindsets and Behaviors,” which examined “multiple high-profile police incidents across the country,” the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and the ensuing mayhem it engendered “initiated a movement that some perceived made it socially acceptable to challenge and discredit the actions of law enforcement,” the report states. “This attitude was fueled by the narrative of police misconduct and excessive force perpetuated through politicians and the media.”

“Hands Up Don’t Shoot” has been the most enduring narrative promoted by the Leftmedia and their political allies, despite being ultimately labeled one of 2014’s “biggest lies of the year” by Washington Post “fact-checker” Glen Kessler. The lefty Kessler alsoreminded us that four Democrat members of the Congressional Black Caucus “raised their hands during their speeches in solidarity” with the anti-cop gesture it spawned, despite the reality the “grand jury had questioned this characterization by then.”

For a racially polarized Obama administration, the grand jury that ultimately exonerated Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson was considered insufficient.More

A professor at Duke University is facing two disciplinary proceedings after condemning diversity training initiatives taking place on campus.

Professor Paul Griffiths of Duke University’s Divinity School is facing charges of “harassment” and “unprofessional conduct” after arguing that socially-engineered diversity efforts have “illiberal roots and totalitarian tendencies.”

In an email on the faculty listserv, Griffiths claimed that mandatory “re-education” programs have a “long and ignoble history.” “When (if) it gets beyond that, its illiberal roots and totalitarian tendencies will show. Events of this sort are definitively anti-intellectual,” he wrote. “(Re)trainings of intellectuals by bureaucrats and apparatchiks have a long and ignoble history; I hope you’ll keep that history in mind as you think about this instance.”

In response to Griffith’s email, Dean Elaine Heath chastised him for disagreeing, claiming that it for was “inappropriate and unprofessional” for Griffiths to “humiliate or undermine” his colleague. “The use of mass emails,” she continued, “to express racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry is offensive and unacceptable, especially in a Christian institution.”

Professor Thomas Pfau of Duke’s Divinity School fired back in Griffith’s defense, arguing that there was absolutely no discernible evidence of bigotry in Griffith’s email.More

BERLIN — The Worcester County Sheriff’s Office this week is investigating at least two cases of vehicle vandalism at Stephen Decatur High School involving loosened lug nuts including one incident in which a wheel came off while the vehicle was in motion.

Lieutenant Ed Schreier of the Worcester County Sheriff’s Office on Wednesday confirmed the Sheriff’s Office was investigating at least two incidents involving loosened lug nuts at the Berlin high school and possibly a third. Schreier said in one incident, a student was driving and noticed the vehicle was wobbling. When the student stopped to determine what was causing the wobbling, the student noticed the vehicle’s lug nuts had been loosened.

In a second incident, a Decatur student was driving and a wheel came off as the student was making a turn. In that incident, the student determined the lugs nuts had been removed, allowing the wheel to come off while the vehicle was in motion. Schreier said considerable damage was caused to the vehicle in the second incident.

WASHINGTON — The two teenagers who were recently cleared in a highly publicized rape case centering on Maryland’s Rockville High School are now fighting to stay in the United States and against newly announced child pornography charges.

On Friday, Montgomery County prosecutors dropped first-degree rape and first-degree sex offense charges against Henry Sanchez Milian, 18, and Jose Montano, 17, who was charged as an adult.

State’s Attorney John McCarthy said an intensive investigation had cast doubt on the 14-year-old victim’s initial report that she had been forced into a boys’ bathroom and raped repeatedly.

Attorneys for Sanchez Milian and Montano had argued the events in the high school bathroom were consensual.

In dropping the rape charges, McCarthy announced Milian and Montano would be charged with possession of child pornography, but would not take questions on his charging decision.

Gen. John K. Singlaub, who served as chief of staff to all U.S. and U.N. forces in South Korea in the 1970s, tells Newsmax TV's John Bachman that President Donald Trump has acted "brilliantly" in dealing with North Korean and its leader Kim Jong-un.

Singlaub, now 95, was removed for his position in South Korea in 1977 after publicly criticizing President Jimmy Carter's plan to remove troops from the Korean Peninsula.

Singlaub has remained keenly focused on developments in Korea since then.

The former Army General had a long and storied military career, beginning in 1944 when with the OSS he parachuted behind Nazi lines, working with French Resistance fighters.

Trump, he said, "has demonstration since the election that he is capable of doing what is necessary to protect this country."

This is a sad day for Army Patriots serving our nation and for our national defense.

The Rainbow Mafia, with the help of its Senate Republican “friends,” Lindsay Graham, Jeff Flake and the now-senile John McCain, refused to let Donald Trump’s extraordinary nomination of Mark Green for secretary of the Army move forward. The reason: His views on homosexuals and Islamists did not pass the PC litmus test.

Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz told CNN’s Don Lemon on Tuesday night that President Donald Trump was well within his rights to fire former FBI director James Comey, and that there was no need for a special prosecutor in the investigation into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.

Dershowitz questioned the timing of Comey’s firing, however, and urged a new, independent investigation into the Russia case.

Dershowitz appeared next to CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, who was apoplectic. “The fact that he did this will disgrace his memory for as long as this presidency is remembered. There is only one date that will be remembered after Januarth 20th so far in the Trump presidency, and it is the day of the ‘Tuesday Night Massacre,'” Toobin said, referencing President Richard Nixon’s firing of Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox during the Watergate scandal.

Toobin had also told CNN’s Anderson Cooper earlier that Trump would likely name a “campaign stooge” as Comey’s replacement at the FBI.

Rep. Rod Blum (R-Iowa) ended an interview with a reporter on Monday in which he was questioned about requiring identification for people taking part in his town hall meetings. Left-wing activists across the country have systematically disrupted these events — sometimes people who are not constituents.

Josh Scheinblum, a reporter with the ABC-affiliate TV9 in Cedar Rapids, asked Blum “why the decision was made” to require identification.

“Because we want people from the first district to be at our town halls,” Blum said. “We don’t want people from outside of the first district.”

“We don’t need people from Chicago there or Des Moines there or Minneapolis there,” Blum said. “I don’t represent them.

“They should go talk to their representatives at their town hall meetings,” Blum said. “I don’t know why they would want to be at my town hall meetings to start with.”More

In an interview with Fox News' Chris Wallace on Sunday, Jonathan Gruber, one of the primary architects of ObamaCare, was questioned as to who was at fault for the law’s failure.

Gruber responded, “Before President Trump was elected there were no counties in America that did not have an insurer. … Then you have a president who comes in, undercuts open enrollment, doesn’t honor the obligations this law makes to insurers and as a result premiums are going up and insurers are exiting.”

In other words, ObamaCare is failing because of Donald Trump. What a conveniently deceitful excuse.

The reality is that insurance companies have been swallowing losses for years, prompting many to leave the government exchanges well before Trump even became a candidate for president. And while Trump has talked about cutting funding to ObamaCare, to date none of those threats have been enacted. Once again, Gruber is simply peddling a lie.More here

Teachers at Highlands Elementary, a school in Edina, Minnesota, are indoctrinating five-year-olds in order to radicalize them and encourage them to become activists obsessed with race.

Public school teachers across America already saturate students with information about racial injustice in America in a nonstop barrage of historic facts and ahistorical nonsense. And in the culture at large, the media, politicians, and the entertainment industry can’t stop talking about race. The last thing any young student in America needs is to be taught about is race. Race matters only to radicals.

Leftists believe you have to get ’em while they’re young and impressionable.

Marxist theorist Paolo Freire advocated in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, that schools be used to inculcate radical values in students so they become agents of social change. Freire held that the so-called dominant pedagogy “silences” poor and minority children and that there is no such thing as a neutral educational system.

Joining Freire in his desire to use the educational system to level institutions is unrepentant communist terrorist and education theorist Bill Ayers, who has long advocated poisoning the minds of the young so they can agitate to fundamentally transform American society.

Customers of bankrupt outdoor goods retailer Gander Mountain are understandably confused. The the company’s website says all locations are closing, but the CEO who just bought the retailer says that’s not quite true. So are they closing or not?

If you pay a visit to the Gander Mountain web page to find out what’s going on, you’ll learn that the chain is shutting down. “All 126 locations nationwide GOING OUT OF BUSINESS!” the site proclaims. “TOTAL LIQUIDATION SAVINGS!”

It also says that gift cards will be accepted until May 18, which is useful information.

President Donald Trump fired James Comey on Tuesday after a Justice Department review found the FBI director had usurped the attorney general's authority by closing a probe into Hillary Clinton's use of private email.

The dismissal shocked political Washington currently embroiled in partisan disputes over whether Russian influence operations tilted the election toward Trump and whether the outgoing Obama administration had conducted improper political spying operations.

The bombshell announcement came late Tuesday afternoon and followed a recommendation earlier in the day from Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who told the president the dismissal was recommended by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

"I have accepted their recommendation and you are hereby terminated and removed from office, effective immediately," Trump said in a letter to Comey, adding that he greatly appreciated Comey's notification on three occasions that Trump was not under investigation.

Perdue’s Harvestland chicken sausage advertises that it’s made from chicken that’s never been exposed to antibiotics, and that it doesn’t contain nitrates, nitrites, or animal byproducts. Now the product is being recalled because of a problematic additive: Customers have found pieces of blue plastic in their sausages.

In March, students at Middlebury College disrupted a lecture by the conservative political scientist Charles Murray because they disagreed with some of his writings. Last month, the University of California, Berkeley, canceled a lecture by the conservative commentator Ann Coulter due to concerns for her safety—just two months after uninviting the conservative writer Milo Yiannopoulos due to violent protests. Media outlets on the right have played up the incidents as evidence of rising close-mindedness on the left.

For years, it’s conservatives who have been branded as intolerant, often for good reason. But conservatives will tell you that liberals demonstrate their own intolerance, using the strictures of political correctness as a weapon of oppression. That became a familiar theme during the 2016 campaign. After the election, Sean McElwee, a policy analyst at the progressive group Demos Action, reported that Donald Trump had received his strongest support among Americans who felt that whites and Christians faced “a great deal” of discrimination. Spencer Greenberg, a mathematician who runs a website for improving decision-making, found that the biggest predictor of voting for Trump after party affiliation was the rejection of political correctness—Trump’s voters felt silenced.

What about the extra expenses of dealing with cash, which include security, keeping a safe, and an armored car pickup for big enough businesses? Polly Mosendz over at Bloomberg News learned that even when you account for theft and the extra work of counting and preparing deposits, cash is still better for the bottom line.

“There are certainly costs involved with handling cash, but they are microscopic compared to the costs of accepting plastic,” explained a spokesman for trade group the National Retail Federation.

Going plastic-only also makes a symbolic statement. It says that you don’t want business from the estimated 7% of adults in this country who are unbanked, meaning that they don’t have a bank account, and use cash and reloadable debit cards to get by and pay bills.

That might not be the what the few businesses that have gone plastic-only intended, but it’s the effect that banishing cash has on a business.

Amazon has lowered its free shipping minimum back down to $25, the latest policy change amid a free-shipping battle with Walmart. The change seems to have been made sometime last week, but it went unreported until today. BestBlackFriday alerted us to the change.

A new FBI report finds that the “War on Cops” is real and has deadly consequences.

Undertaken last year after a spate of cop-killings around the nation, the study confirms that areas across the nation have seen “de-policing” in the wake of protests that political leaders seemed to support.

“Law enforcement not only felt that their national political leaders [publicly] stood against them, but also that the politicians’ words and actions signified that disrespect to law enforcement was acceptable in the aftermath of the [Michael] Brown shooting,” the study notes.

“The Assailant Study — Mindsets and Behaviors” examines the men behind 50 cop-killings last year. Most of the perps were simply looking to avoid arrest, but a full 28 percent actively hated police and desired to “kill law enforcement.”

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slowdown in overall system performance, particularly in the flower and jewelry applications and intimacy, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0. In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 65, and then installed undesirable programs such as: NBA 5.0, NFL 3.0 and Golf 4.1.

Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and House cleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system. Please note that I have tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail.

What can I do?

Signed, Desperate

The response (that came weeks later out of the blue):

Dear Desperate,

First keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an operating system. Please enter command: I thought you loved me.html and try to download Tears 6.2. Do not forget to install the Guilt 3.0 update. If that application works as designed, Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewelry 2.0 and Flowers 3.5.

However, remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0, or Beer 6.1. Please note that Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will download the Farting and Snoring Loudly Beta version. Whatever you do, DO NOT, under any circumstances, install Mother-In-Law 1.0 as it runs a virus in the background that will eventually seize control of all your system resources.In addition, please do not attempt to re-install the Boyfriend 5.0 program. These are unsupported applications and will crash Husband 1.0. In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance. We recommend Cooking 3.0.

Sen. Rand Paul, the former Republican presidential candidate and vocal champion of civil liberties, has received allegations that the Obama administration sought intercepted intelligence from the National Security Agency on him and other members of Congress and has asked President Donald Trump to conduct a formal investigation, Circa has learned.

Paul quietly asked for the probe nearly a month ago in a letter to Trump that was obtained by Circa.

"An anonymous source recently alleged to me that my name, as well as the names of other Members of Congress, were unmasked, queried or both, in intelligence reports of intercepts during the prior administration," Paul wrote Trump in a letter dated April 10.

"In light of the revelations that the names of persons associated with the Trump campaign were unmasked, I believe the allegations that myself and other elected members of the legislative branch may have also been unmasked or caught in intelligence gathering warrants investigation."

The emergence of the letter, which also was copied to White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and senior Trump adviser Steve Bannon, comes after Circa recently reported that members of Congress and their staffs have been unmasked in NSA intelligence reports as frequently as once a month since President Obama loosened privacy protections back in 2011.